One former employee of the Telegraph told HuffPost they were "horrified" by the story, and the swirl of accusations. "It's been just horrible to see, there are so many fantastic journalists who work there."

And in what was probably a Fleet Street Twitter first, there was even a direct appeal from one media boss to another, as the usually mild mannered editor in chief of the Guardian, Alan Rushbridger, tweeted angrily at Murdoch MacLennan, chief executive of the Telegraph Media Group: